Christmas at Hell's Gate
by Curious Ideas
Summary: Norm and Grace are at Hell's Gate's Christmas party. Grace is surprisingly sober, frustrating Norm's drunken requests to dance with her. Cue Jake, hilarity in tow.     Yeah, I know about the dates. Shush.


_(Note: Yeah, I know the canon doesn't let me do this. Imagine the film's dates are shifted forward 6 months.)_

It was busy. It was bustling. It was – ostensibly – jolly. In short, it was Christmas.

"Not even a short dance?" said Norm as he flopped onto the nearest chair.

"I said 'later!'" Grace said beside him. She took a conservative sip of her drink as she watched the dancers at the far side of the room.

"You said that the last time," Norm groaned, taking a large swig of his own drink.

"And I meant it!" Grace snapped at him.

"OK, sorry," Norm relented, putting his drink down on the table rather unsteadily. "It's just a bit disappointing if you don't have any Christmas spirit, that's all."

"Would that be the Christmas spirit that's nine foot tall and blue?" Grace mused. Norm just stared at her, only catching on when she gestured past him. He turned around.

He kept staring as Jake sat down next to him. Jake seemed to notice, and said, "You're crazy if you think I'm gonna party in a wheelchair."

"But where did you get the…" Norm began, stunned. He turned around and began "Where did he…" before he noticed Grace was gone. He turned back to Jake and asked, confused, "Where did Grace go?"

"Dunno," Jake said flatly. "She walked out just as I came in."

Norm, still stupefied, looked Jake up and down. Fashion became very difficult when blue skin was involved, but the words "dashing" and "handsome" tried to crawl their way through his alcohol-soaked brain as best they could manage. "Intelligent" tried too, but there was too much working grey matter left. He paused for a few seconds, before settling on, "Can you get me a glass of water?"

"Can't you do it yourself?" Jake asked, smiling mockingly.

"Not sure I can stand up," replied Norm flatly.

Jake deftly navigated the empty chairs and tables strewn around the room, and as he crouched down at the bar, the bartender raised an eyebrow. Jake explained what he wanted, and the bartender didn't comment. He simply produced the drinks without a word, before turning to serve other customers. Some of them stared at Jake, but didn't say anything. He pretended not to notice.

Jake sat down at the table again, and slid the glass of water over to Norm, while taking a sip of his own half-full glass.

"What's that?" Norm said slowly, not touching his own drink.

"Vodka," Jake replied calmly, licking drips of it off his upper lip. Norm just sat there for a moment, so Jake prompted him with, "Why?"

"…It comes in pints?" he managed.

"Sure it does," Grace said, as she seemed to materialize between them. As she sat down, she waved a noxious-looking — and, Jake noticed, almost full to the brim — glass under their noses. Jake felt the stench of paint-stripper hit his nostrils, and saw Norm choke at the other end of the table.

Grace took a large gulp of her drink, before putting it down again as she registered the look on Jake's face. "What?" she asked innocently, her smile shaded by a thin line of neon green liquid.

Norm glanced between the two of them. Grace was smiling contently, as though she had always had sky-blue skin, and you had simply been unobservant for thinking otherwise, whereas Jake was simply stunned at being one-upped so quickly. "I should just give up now, shouldn't I?" Norm concluded.

"That wouldn't very Christmas-y, would it?" Grace said.

Norm just glared at her gloomily. "Humbug," he grunted.

"Sorry. Come here," she said. Norm didn't quite manage to follow how the chairs shuffled around, but somehow Grace had arrived in the adjacent chair, and wrapped a long lanky arm around him in a hug. He realized he felt cold, so he reluctantly snuggled into the warm space, with a moan. He didn't want to look like he was enjoying himself.

After a moment, he noticed Jake's raised eyebrow. "Take a photo, then," he groaned. "I can see it in your eyes."

"Don't worry, I don't think he's going to take any photos," Grace said, in a tone that turned seemed to the opinion into very hard fact. She took a drink with her free hand, as Jake did the same, eyebrow still raised. Norm just shuffled deeper into his warm crevice.

"I'm drunk, I'm allowed to be illogical," Grace explained. "Besides, what in the name of sanity do you have on your head?"

"It's a top hat," Jake said, taking another drink.

"But it's huge!" she replied.

"I'm a big man," Jake said, as though this was the most obvious and incidental thing in the world.

Grace said nothing for a few seconds, and then replied, "Stand up." Jake rose to his feet slightly faster than he took to realize he could have said no. "Turn around," she continued, and Jake did.

"Oh dear," Norm moaned, as he realized what Jake had done.

"You could have been neater," Grace said caustically, as she saw what Jake had done to the lower half of his suit. There were two very conspicuous torn ends near his waist, as though longer strips of material had been crudely cut off.

"It was very short notice," Jake replied, turning back around and sitting down. "You look great, by the way," he continued, with just a hint of insincerity.

"I had shorter notice," Grace countered. Her hand had seemingly migrated, and was now gently stroking Norm's head. He mumbled incoherently, but didn't move. "I would say 'Nice suit', but you've made such a mess of the tails..." she continued, shaking her head sadly but nonetheless smiling. She took another drink of neon green liquid.

"Well—" Jake said, trying very hard and failing to keep a straight face.

"Shhh," Grace interrupted in a whisper, equally struggling not to laugh. She nodded down subtly, and Jake noticed that Norm was falling asleep in her arm. His eyes were still open, but it was quite clear there was nobody home.

"Er..." a new voice said, and the two of them turned - sideways, not upwards - to see Max standing by their table. "Do I want to know?" he said, quietly.

There was an awkward pause. Grace and Jake swapped conspiratorial glances. "I think Norm's had a bit too much to drink," Grace explained.

"I think he's comfortable," Jake said nonchalantly as he took another drink. "Like he's just become one with his inner self."

"Well, he might be, but he can't stay there all night," said Grace, as she shifted her large body to the next chair over. There was a cartoon moment as Norm leaned on nothing, before gravity took over. Grace moved to catch him, and he woke up with a jolt as he landed on her shoulder.

"Mmhmm," he moaned, looking despondently at Grace, "I was comfy."

"But you really need to go to bed," Grace said, smiling warmly.

He paused a moment before he murmured, "Prob'ly," and stood up, holding onto the table. He took a tentative step in Jake's direction, paused again as a precaution, and then took another step and let go.

Jake tried to catch him, but didn't get a good grip, and they both fell to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. Despite the alcohol sloshing around, Jake eventually managed to get up and then crouch down low enough for Norm to lean drunkenly on his shoulder.

"Only a bit?" Max asked, watching the whole thing unfold with a mixture of alarm and amusement.

"Only a bit," Norm repeated, with a slightly dishevelled smile, as he struggled to stand upright.

Max looked disappointingly at Grace, who then said, "Jake, can you make sure Norm gets back to his room safely, please? I wouldn't want to find him in the morning unconscious in a corridor somewhere."

"Sure," Jake said. As he stood up, he swept an arm under Norm's legs, and easily lifted him off his feet. For lack of anything else to hold on to, Norm wrapped both arms around Jake's neck and held on tightly.

As the surreal sight of the two of them disappeared, Max told Grace, "Drunk driving sets a bad example."

"If I knew you were going to make a pun that terrible, I wouldn't have bothered," she retorted.

"I'm serious," Max said. "It's hard enough to break up the brawls in here without drunken aliens as well."

"Max, you know me. I'm not going to cause fights, even if I'm..." she paused and looked down at her glass, which was close to half-empty. "...very drunk. As for Jake, he's..." Grace trailed off, as her brain failed to keep up with her mouth. "...not getting out," she finished after a moment. "Unless you want to kick him out."

Max said nothing for a moment while he worked out what that would involve.

"I don't think we'd need to go that far," he said smoothly, but Grace could see the worry in his eyes. Jake would not appreciate being ejected from his avatar, and although he only had two working limbs, he could still do plenty of damage with them.

"Then you're stuck with us," Grace said. "Besides, it is Christmas."

"Yeah, I just don't want you spoiling someone's Christmas because they called you a blue monkey," Max explained.

Grace gave Max a very specific look.

"Whether or not they deserve it," he added quickly. "You can't go around beating people up just because you can. ...You know what I mean," he finished as he realized what he just said.

"Well," Grace said, "the idea was to make sure he didn't have the best time." She nodded sideways, and Max looked past her to see that Jake was approaching again.

"I can't help but notice..." he said as he approached, badly faking nonchalance.

"...that I'm your only potential dancing partner?" Grace finished, smiling.

There was a split-second pause while Jake thought about objecting, and then worked out where the conversation could go from there.

"Yes," he said, as though that was what he meant all along.

"Well, I am still mobile," Grace said loftily, "and as you say, there is no-one else..."

Max scurried off.

"Where's he going?" Jake asked suspiciously.

"I have no idea. Does it matter?" Grace admitted, as she offered a long and thin hand to Jake. She rose out of her seat as he took it, and the two of them walked closer to the dance floor.

They stopped and stood on the edge of the dance floor, to wait for the dance of the moment to stop. Jake whispered to Grace, "To your left."

Grace looked over, and saw that Max was talking to one of the members of the band.

"I think we should play along, if he's saying what I think he's saying," she whispered.

Jake looked at her sideways, "But—"

"I think you're only going to get one chance," Grace interrupted.

"By the way," Jake said quickly, as he noticed the music was slowing down, "my wheelchair's been commandeered."

"Stolen, you mean?"

"Borrowed without permission," Jake quoted sarcastically. "But with every intention of bringing it back."

Before Grace could say anything more, the song finished. As the music died away, one of the band members said into his microphone, in a thick American accent, "Are you going to join us, Dr. Augustine? I'm sure people wouldn't mind giving you and your... partner the space." As he spoke, the crowd seemed to shuffle around, and a large gap formed between them and the stage. Jake and Grace exchanged glances - she quickly glared down his hopeful, slightly lecherous smile, and the two of them stepped deftly into the gap provided for them. "I knew you wonderful people would be as keen as I am to see these two dance," he continued. "Also, by request, this next song will be a rather fast waltz, so I hope you're all quick on your feet. I think you'll recognize it as we get going."

As the two avatars joined hands, and moved in close, Jake stage-whispered, "Where does the tail go in a waltz?" The music swelled, the dance began, and Jake was lifted off his feet as Grace glided off.

As she swung around Jake, Grace began, "When you say, 'commandeered', does that mean..." but was interrupted as she spun on the spot. She made eye contact with him again, and continued, "you need a lift home?"

"Would you mind?" he said, with another of his grins that tried - perhaps too hard - to be endearing.

Concentrating slightly too much on being endearing, he stumbled and almost lost his balance as their dance plunged on, and there was a wave of good-natured laughter around the room; Jake realized they probably thought he'd done that deliberately. As he recovered, Grace quietly joked to him, "The man leads this dance, doesn't he?"

"I'm out of practice," he replied, trying not to laugh and concentrate now fixed on making sure his oversized feet ended up where they were supposed to be amid he and Grace's twirling across the dance floor. Grace said nothing more, and the two of them seemed to glide, only bouncing off the ground when the rhythm commanded.

Seemingly quite suddenly, the music slowed, and then died. The two of them stopped, and let go of each other; and without each other's support, stumbled a few steps. It took a moment for Jake to understand the noise that was coming from around him, but as he did so, the joy in the room seemed to flow up from the end of his tail to the tip of his ears. The people gathered around the tables on the edge of the floor were applauding; everyone had enjoyed their performance.

He turned to the nearest table. "Again?" he suggested, slightly dazed by the euphoria.

They cheered their agreement.

He turned back to Grace, and it felt like he was holding her hands through cotton wool; he was trying to ignore how much the scene felt like a surreal dream, despite it being perfectly real. The music started up again – though slower this time – and the two of them felt a new wave of energy surge through them, prompting them to twirl and spin again.

They could've danced all night – so they did.

As Grace opened the door into the room, she spotted Jake's wheelchair against the far wall. She sighed as she ducked into and crossed the room, and laid Jake down on the bed.

"Good night," she said, as she wearily headed back towards the door.

"G'night," was Jake's slightly muffled but very morose reply.

Grace turned back, and noticed Jake wasn't looking at her. She followed his gaze and felt a pang of sympathy as she realized he was looking at his uselessly atrophied feet. "You all right?" she said, slightly concerned.

Jake looked up at her, and paused for a fraction of a second before saying, "Yeah." He tried and failed to hide the gloom in his voice.

"I can tell," Grace replied. She didn't move, and it was clear from her tone, with all its dripping sarcasm, that she didn't believe Jake for a moment.

"People are going to shout at me for the Avatar thing," Jake droned, averting his eyes from Grace.

Grace knelt down in front of him, as she told him, "Look at me." He did, and didn't need to say a word to tell her how resigned he felt. She could see it in his eyes, along with self-esteem the size of a pea. "You've got as much right to have fun as the rest of us, so if anyone shouts at you, tell me, and I'll shout at them. You've heard the warnings about us managers, right?"

"No…?" Jake hesitated, distracted from his depression.

"Do not meddle in the affairs of project managers," Grace quoted from the top of her head, "for they are not at all subtle and very quick to anger."

She smiled, which turned into a wide grin as she realized that Jake was trying and failing to keep a straight face. After a moment, he gave up and started laughing.

"Besides, nobody's going to forget tonight," Grace continued. "Don't be surprised if there's a note covered in love hearts or two under the door in the morning. And don't look at me like that," she said as he did so, "they think you look good in blue."

"And you don't?" Jake prompted, still smiling.

"I never said that," Grace retorted. "You were just… overdressed compared to how I normally think of you."

Jake almost fell off his bed laughing, but Grace caught him and helped him back up.

"Since it's Christ–" Grace started, before glancing at the clock on the wall, "Boxing Day, I've been thinking. I'm sorry about what I said you when arrived. You're not a copy of your brother, and it was unfair for me to want you to be just so you could do his job."

"Thanks," Jake said as he adjusted himself on the bed, far more cheerfully than Grace had seen him in a long time.

"Well, good night," Grace replied as she thought Jake had finished, and stepped towards the door again.

She turned back again when Jake continued, "For everything, I meant. I don't get to do that often."

She stopped a moment while this sunk in. "Merry Christmas," she said, as she slowly left the room. There was a soft click as she closed the door behind her.


End file.
